Girl Bosses, Tradwives & Incels, Oh My! Inside Modern Dating Culture w/ Mary Margaret Olohan (Ep.45)

Summary

Nightly Scroll with Hayley - Episode 45 Summary
Title: Girl Bosses, Tradwives & Incels, Oh My! Inside Modern Dating Culture w/ Mary Margaret Olihan
Release Date: May 9, 2025
Host: Hayley Caronia
Guest: Mary Margaret Olihan, White House Correspondent for The Daily Wire

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Introduction

In Episode 45 of Nightly Scroll with Hayley, host Hayley Caronia welcomes Mary Margaret Olihan, the White House correspondent for The Daily Wire. The episode delves into multiple pressing topics, including the dynamics of modern media, the troubling rise of crowdfunding for controversial individuals, and the complexities of today's dating culture from a conservative perspective.

Guest Background and Experiences [03:18 - 05:05]

Mary Margaret Olihan shares her upbringing near the "swamp" in Virginia, highlighting a community rich in conservative values amidst the liberal influence of nearby Washington D.C. She reflects on her transition from a traditional Catholic upbringing to her experiences in a politically charged environment during college.

Notable Quote:
“We have a really close familiarity with DC and with every surrounding area.” ([05:05])

Career in Journalism [14:02 - 17:53]

Mary Margaret discusses her journey into journalism with The Daily Caller News Foundation, inspired by the Kavanaugh hearings and frustrated by mainstream media's portrayal of conservative issues. She emphasizes her focus on social issues like abortion, gender, and family, challenging the legacy media’s narrative manipulation.

Notable Quote:
“They are purposefully using language to manipulate how we think about these things.” ([16:18])

White House Briefings and Media Access [21:37 - 35:58]

The conversation shifts to Mary Margaret's role in the White House briefings under the Trump administration. She contrasts her experiences with previous administrations, noting increased access for new media and content creators. Mary Margaret highlights the cramped and less formal environment of these briefings, emphasizing the aggressive nature of securing questions.

Notable Quote:
“Caroline will typically call on reporters from all over the room... balancing across the front and back.” ([22:28])

Mary Margaret also critiques the legacy media's disdain for new media reporters, referencing a Politico piece that portrayed MAGA outlets as disruptive.

Notable Quote:
“Any questions that are just truth seeking... there is nothing wrong with asking about that.” ([34:17])

Crowdfunding Controversial Figures [37:25 - 44:23]

Hayley and Mary Margaret express concern over crowdfunding platforms like GiveSendGo being utilized for individuals involved in criminal activities. They discuss specific cases where perpetrators have raised substantial funds, highlighting a cultural shift towards avoiding accountability.

Notable Quote:
“These people are allergic to accountability, it seems.” ([40:16])

Modern Dating Culture [45:05 - 58:26]

The duo transitions to discussing modern dating challenges, particularly for conservative women. They critique the prevalence of misinformation about political beliefs on dating apps and the strategic misrepresentation some men employ to attract partners. Hayley shares personal frustrations with dating apps, noting the decline in genuine interactions and the superficiality exacerbated by social media.

Notable Quote:
“It's like, this is crazy. Like, they look like crack addicts. Like, they're not even real.” ([51:14])

Tradwife Culture vs. Career Women [60:19 - 67:48]

Hayley introduces a debate between Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh regarding women's roles in society and relationships. Megyn Kelly advocates for the value of career-driven women while acknowledging the beauty of staying home, whereas Matt Walsh emphasizes traditional roles, suggesting men are generally not attracted to ambitious women.

Mary Margaret offers a balanced perspective, recognizing the challenges women face in balancing careers and family aspirations, and the societal pressures that discourage traditional family structures.

Notable Quote:
“There is nothing wrong with asking about that, especially because our audiences and our viewers care and they want to know more about it.” ([35:10])

Conclusion and Final Thoughts [67:48 - End]

The episode wraps up with Hayley and Mary Margaret reflecting on the importance of honest conversations about family, career, and societal expectations. Mary Margaret promotes her book, True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult, and encourages listeners to follow her work on Twitter and The Daily Wire.

Notable Quote:
“We just need to be more honest about these conversations.” ([57:31])

Hayley urges listeners to subscribe to the Bongino Report channel on Rumble and follow her on social media to stay updated with future episodes.

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Key Takeaways

• Media Dynamics: The shift towards embracing new media in the Trump administration contrasts sharply with prior administrations' treatment of conservative media voices.
• Accountability Issues: The rise of crowdfunding for controversial and criminal figures reflects a troubling avoidance of personal accountability.
• Dating Challenges: Conservative individuals face unique struggles in modern dating environments dominated by political misrepresentation and superficial interactions.
• Balancing Careers and Family: The debate between traditional family roles and female career ambitions highlights ongoing societal tensions and personal challenges.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “They are purposefully using language to manipulate how we think about these things.” ([16:18])
• “Caroline will typically call on reporters from all over the room... balancing across the front and back.” ([22:28])
• “Any questions that are just truth seeking... there is nothing wrong with asking about that.” ([34:17])
• “These people are allergic to accountability, it seems.” ([40:16])
• “It's like, this is crazy. Like, they look like crack addicts. Like, they're not even real.” ([51:14])
• “We just need to be more honest about these conversations.” ([57:31])

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This episode of Nightly Scroll offers a deep dive into the intersection of media influence, societal accountability, and the evolving landscape of personal relationships from a conservative viewpoint. Mary Margaret Olihan provides insightful commentary grounded in her experiences as a White House correspondent, making for a compelling and thought-provoking discussion.

Transcript

[Haley Caronia]

Hello everyone. Hello to all my homies in the chat. Thank you for spending your Friday evening with me. We have a great show on deck for you tonight. I want to first before we get into all of this, remind you to subscribe go to the Bongino Report channel on rumble rumble.com Haley is where you can watch my show. It's where you can catch Evita's show in the morning. Then if you want to listen at your own leisure, you can do that. Go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your shows. Search Nightly scroll and I will be there. I do have to say I would love it if you subscribed so that you never miss a show. I would love it if you said something nice about me. I would love it if you gave me five stars. These are all things that helped me in the end. So I do appreciate that. And without further ado, I am not alone on Nightly scroll tonight. I am joined by my friend Mary Margaret Olihan. She is the daily Wires White House correspondent. I don't know about all of you but I am fascinated with the briefings, who gets the questions, how it all works and of course how the administration is welcoming in new media voices. So we are also going to get into the demise of crowdfunding campaigns. With murderers and racists raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, things have really taken a turn for the worse. Plus we are breaking down modern day dating culture. Major names in conservative media like Megyn Kelly, Matt Walsh, they are at odds about what men actually find attractive. And Mary Margaret and I are two hard working single conservatives. So we are going to weigh in on the rise of trad wife culture, the apparent male loneliness epidemic and she's even going to stick around for scrolling time. So without further ado, Mary Margaret Olihan joins me on this episode of Nightly Scroll. Blackout Coffee. I told you this in the beginning. You know I love my blackout coffee. I love it. I can't start the show without it. You know I do not mess around when it comes to my coffee. I am all about blackout coffee. They are a small batch family owned roastery right here in Florida. They craft bold premium coffee that actually delivers on flavor, not the burnt stuff, not the gross stuff. So whether you like it strong and black or smooth, a little cream, they have a roast for you and they ship fresh to all 50 states. So wherever you are you can get your hands on it just like me. And because you're part of my crew and you scroll with the homies, you can get 20% off of your order just you'd code use code Haley H A Y L E Y at checkout or hit up blackout coffee.com Haley to grab your bag. I absolutely love it. I'm adding a second, sometimes third cup of coffee a day thanks to Blackout. So I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing, but I do love Blackout. So stop drinking wheat coffee beans. Make the switch to Blackout Coffee today blackoutcoffee.com Haley use code Hayley for 20% off your order.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

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[Haley Caronia]

Hello Mary Margaret, thank you for joining me tonight.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here with you and I know all your, your scrollers. This is so much fun, isn't it?

[Haley Caronia]

So much fun. This is a great way to spend a Friday night, if I do say so myself. I, I do encourage people in the chat. I say pour yourself a drink. Even on earlier this week, Cinco de Mayo was on Monday. I made myself a margarita and I did the show. Just I didn't get drunk. Of course this is professional, this is a professional show. But I always encourage my scrollers to, I don't know, pour a glass of wine, enjoy. And this is, I want this to be a fun conversation. We became friends in Nashville and I was just telling, or I was just talking about this with you before the show started that I just had Chrissy Clark on the show on Monday. I also became friends with her in Nashville. So I have met so many boss babes, conservative women, like minded women in Nashville. I'm so grateful for that.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

It was so cool and I was obviously like brand new to the city. I had never lived in Nashville before. Honestly, I had never really lived anywhere except D.C. and Virginia as an adult before. So you were so sweet and immediately got dinner with me and drinks and it was so nice to have a friend in Nashville. And now we're both on other sides of the east Coast. You're all the way at the bottom and I know we're towards the top.

[Haley Caronia]

Now, but I know this sucks now. We need to just hang out like this Virtually right now we're going to.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Get you to come to D.C. and hang out with me. So that'll be fun.

[Haley Caronia]

Yes. Your birthday's in about a month. I'm going to book my flights, I'm going to get up there. We've got to get to the swamp and celebrate the birthday. 30 is a big one, so we've got to go hard. I love it, but I want to talk about the swamp. So you grew up in the swamp. What was that like? Or not in the swamp, but around the swamp, I should say.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah. So my family lived about an hour, an hour and a half from the swamp in Virginia, which I think is incredibly beautiful and a wonderful place to live. But it's nice because we're so close to the city that now all my siblings and I can work there. And, you know, a lot of us work in politics and we have a really close familiarity with DC and with every. All the surrounding area. So you might think that everywhere around D.C. is liberal and very blue. And that's true of the pocket right around D.C. like Alexandria, Arlington, D.C. but further out you get, the more you have some really good old rednecks, some really salt of the earth Virginians, homeschoolers, Catholics, Christians, all these great people that I grew up with. And I love it so much. That was, it's my.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah, that was my experience too. I mean, everyone says, oh, you're from New York. You must have lived in this, you know, blue city, all the, the blue state, all this stuff. I, that was not my experience at all. I grew up on Long island, just out of New York City. Like you said, there's, you know, cops and law enforcement officers, firefighters. I've got firefighters in my family. Just like good blue collar people, normal people, people who vote for red. You know, I didn't grow up with liberals really. Certainly they're around, but I grew up in this, like, red haven in a blue state. So. I totally feel you on that.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

It's so funny too, because you, you know, for me, I grew up in a very like, Catholic traditional community. So these liberals we would hear about, we'd be like, can you believe that people exist?

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

And then I'm in the real world and went to college in D.C. and I was like, oh, wow, yes, they, they do exist.

[Haley Caronia]

Even my. So I. Fairfield University in Connecticut and like really minimal liberals there as well. And it was a liberal arts school, but everyone was really conservative. Most of my friends are conservative. Yeah. I mean, I just didn't have that like, woke college experience. I think so. When I was in college, we had this. I think I did not go to the party. I just want to be on the record. I was not there. But they threw a ghetto themed party. So people were kind of. Kind of like dressing up white trash, if you will. And we in Fairfield, Connecticut, we're right next to Bridgeport, Connecticut, which is not a great area. It's like going from the best to the worst real quick. And people in Bridgeport, Connecticut caught wind, I have no idea how, of this ghetto party that happened. I think it was at like an off campus house even. It wasn't even on the school's campus. But yeah, Black Lives Matter found out about it. They were on our campus. This must have been in 2015. Like, this was before BLM was BLM and they were burning down cities in 2020. This was like the OG BLM. And they caught wind of the ghetto party. They were all angry. But yes, I just want to say I was not there. You were.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

You were around the BLM craziness before. It was really cool.

[Haley Caronia]

Yes, exactly. Yes, I was one of the OGs experiencing a black Lives Matter protest. But yeah, no, then I caught really, I really lived through it. When I was living in New York City. I was working at Fox News at the time and it was crazy because I worked on a late night show. So I got out of work at maybe 11pm Something like that. And once everything was said and done and I was all wrapped up and Mayor Bill de Blasio at the time, he had this, you know, curfew in place. You know, it was all these protests. They, it was dangerous. So if you were out on the street past, I don't know what it was, 8pm you would get fined. So Uber drivers didn't even want to be out on the streets. It was like very difficult for me to get home. So Fox would have to figure out car services for everyone who worked on a late night show. And yeah, I drove home one night. It was. I was carpooling with Tucker Carlson's team. We were driving down the road. We dropped them off first. Then there was this like, checkpoint. And my Uber driver or my car driver, like, really didn't speak much English. He got spooked by the cops, so he started like gunning it uptown. Then my boss called me and she said, you should be home by now. And I said, actually, my driver just told me to get out. In Harlem, there was a flight. Flaming garbage all over the streets. I swear, you could feel. You could feel the heat coming off of the flaming garbage, like in the car. And he was telling me to get out. I was like, I live so far from here. It would. It would have been like an hour and a half for me to walk home and I would.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Crying, freaking out.

[Haley Caronia]

It was a whole debacle. It took me hours to get home. It was. I had a police escort home. It was just. I'm not going to get into all the details, but, yeah, so these are my experiences with blm. I was there from the very beginning and, you know, all the way through all the George Floyd craziness. But you. Were you part of the riot squad? Were you part of the Daily Caller journalists that were out covering all this.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Stuff in D.C. so, no, actually, I had a very different Covid experience than most people. And I want to say this tactfully because I know that many people died during COVID and it was a really hard time for some people. I was so blessed because I. I got to be with my family and I'm one of 11 kids and so we're a big family. I'm number two and I'm the oldest girl. So during COVID we all just went home and we were there with my parents and we all just had this really pleasant kind of like Sound of Music existence. All of COVID you know, like that our day to day was kind of like, we wake up, we hang out, we have coffee, everybody works, we work out, we watch movies at night and then repeat. It was really great. But I did have interest in joining the riot squad, which, if anyone doesn't know, that's my friend Shelby Talcott, who's very cool. Richie McGinnis, Jorge Ventura, and then I want to say Julio Rosas was part of that riot spot too. And it was mostly Daily Caller, but at the time they were covering all these BLM riots and they were wearing all this gear and masks and avoiding all of the pepper spray and what do they call them? The. There were. There were rubber bullet guns. What. Do you remember what they were called? Or Crazy. But my, My dad worked in law enforcement, so when I said to him, hey, I think I'm going to go cover these riots, he looked at me like I was insane. And he was like, why would you do that?

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah. He was like, maybe you can start covering journalism and covering some stories that are less. Less dangerous. Right?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

And I, you know, if. I think if I had been closer to the city, I probably would have been like, it's fine. Or, you know, maybe parents later, because I've done, you know, obviously, as A journalist, you're going to do a lot of things that your parents are not comfortable with you doing, right? But I was living at home at the time, and I thought, okay, well, we've got the riot squad out there. I'm going to cover some stories from home. But I will say some very scary moments. I remember 1am in my bed scrolling on Twitter and keeping the Daily Caller group chat live because Shelby and Richie would be in the thick of it. Maybe they were in Kenosha. And I remember Shelby DMing us and saying, I can't find Richie. We heard shots fired, and we're all laying in bed like, oh, my gosh, are they okay? And turns out Richie was helping the guy that Kyle Rittenhouse shot. And just the whole thing was so surreal and scary and sad, and we're just at home doing nothing but praying for them, you know, because we're worried about what was happening. So just absolutely insane period of life. And I'm so glad they were okay. And now they got some good stories to tell from covering those riots. But I think they left a lasting impact on them, too, probably the way your experience in New York did, just because it was just so. So end times kind of situations that everyone was in that we would never expect to find ourselves in.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah, they. They did amazing work. You know, I was working at Fox News at the time. They really weren't sending a lot of reporters out. Certainly they would. But there is a dangerous aspect to all of this. Like, we don't want to put our reporters in. In the line of fire or. Or in a situation that they could get seriously injured or hurt. Obviously, the stories still need to get covered. And we did utilize a lot of the Daily Caller journalists and even independent journalists and citizen journalists as well. And I feel like they really made their mark during COVID And so you were writing for the Daily Caller, and where did you cause your niche? You cover a lot of pro life issues. You cover detransitioners. So tell me a little bit about your career and then how you got to the White House.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah, so I love talking about this because I think it's kind of funny. Like I said, I grew up in this big family, and I think I always just thought, I'm going to have 10 kids right out of college. I don't really care about what I do. But then I didn't meet the right guy. And so when I was graduating, I thought, okay, well, you're not going to be a mom yet. What do you want to actually do? And I was working at a publishing company, Regnery Publishing, which actually published my book later on. It's a very full circle moment there. And I was working for them as a marketing and publicity associate when the Kavanaugh hearings happened. And I was just locked in. I was fascinated by all of it. I paid such close attention to Christine Blasey Ford's story, and everyone was jumping in on either side of the aisle to form conclusions based on very little evidence. But as the story progressed and as we learned more and more, I just was radicalized by the way the mainstream or legacy media was talking about all of it. To them, Kavanaugh was dead to rights only because he might overturn Roe v. Wade. And they said that very explicitly. They were like, we want to take this guy out in case that he in the future overturns Roe v. Wade. And spoiler alert, he actually did. But at the time. At the time, that was their rallying cry. But then they also were saying, well, no, obviously he sexually assaulted this woman. And so I was really bothered by the way all these legacy outlets were covering this story. And one of the only outlets that I was really seeing at the time that I was impressed by was Daily Caller. They were doing a really, really good job. Just they jumped into that void that was left by legacy media and just absolutely pounded the hypocrisy, pounded that, the lies, and really filled that void with real reporting. And so after the Kavanaugh hearings were over, I kind of thought about it for a little while, took a leap of faith, applied to the Daily Caller News foundation, which is the nonprofit side of the Daily Caller, and they hired me, and I thought, okay, well, I don't know how smart that was for them because I really didn't know too much about journalism, but they taught me so much. They were super. They were super hard on me. They had this really great journalism program on the news foundation side where they teach you how to be a really good reporter at the same time that you're writing.

[Haley Caronia]

Wow.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

And so I was hustling and hustling, and the girl that covered abortion left. And they said, do you want her beat? It would have to be a social issues beat. And at the time, that beat was really not sexy at all. It was kind of considered the boring religious beat, which I would. You know, I would disagree with that. But you could see, I think, how from a political perspective, before the culture wars of the last couple years, people might not think that readers would care about social issues or even religious freedom issues. But I argued at the time. And I think I proved my point that people care very passionately about all of these things. They're just not being given real news about them. So when I started covering this beat, I was like, I'm not just gonna do abortion. We're gonna do gender and marriage and family and euthanasia and all of these things that people care about so much that you only really hear about from liberal reporters. So, you know, you read a story from the Washington Post, they're calling a baby's heartbeat fetal cardiac activity. They're calling transgender surgeries for kids gender affirming care. And they're purposefully pulling the wool over the eyes of the American public to make them think that all these things are, A, unpopular or, you know, very popular, if that's how they want to frame it. And B, they're purposefully using language to manipulate how we think about these things so that when they present the next radical thing, such as, you know, removing the healthy breasts from a young teenage girl, people will say, oh, well, that makes sense. Most Americans agree with that.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah. And it really has been happening for years, and it's really not that big of a deal. Yeah. So your articles were. I was captivated by them. I remember seeing your name. I was. I think at the time I was working at Newsmax. And this is when Roe versus Wade was overturned. It was the story. I mean, it was all of the insane, dangerous protests outside of the justices houses, and, you know, women in D.C. just covering themselves, dowsing themselves with, like, fake blood and just the crazy. I mean, and the attacks on pro life pregnancy centers too. I remember your reporting on all of this. It was really scary.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah, it makes me really happy to hear you say that, because, I mean, to say that you remember it because this was an insane period of time where, you know, all over the country we were seeing attacks on pregnancy centers. And these vandals were so dumb, they would literally spray paint on the pregnancy centers. If abortions aren't safe, then neither are you. So very obviously pro abortion vandalism crimes all over the country. And at the same time, they're attacking Catholic churches, because Catholics always get lumped into this because we're very outspoken on abortion. Burning churches, firebombing churches, just really horrible crimes all over the country. And they're all coinciding with the overturn of Roe v. Wade. But of course, because President Joe Biden was in the White House at the time, his DOJ was just like, meh, whatever. And then they're meanwhile focusing on targeting and arresting pro life activists and throwing them in jail for peaceful protests. So this was just this massive, crazy scandal that was going on for years. And then, of course, when Donald Trump came into office, he pardoned a lot of these pro lifers. And I'm hearing that Harmeet Dhillon is excited to get back and investigate some of these crimes against pro lifers, but really was hard. There were not a ton of people reporting on it or understanding the significance of some of these things. You know, you think like, oh, that's really sad that pregnancy center got vandalized. But no, it's actually a huge deal and part of a nationwide attack on people of faith and pro lifers. But so, yeah, that was something I spent a lot of time reporting on. And also after Covid when, you know, there was all these parents that realized what their kids were being taught in schools, they got a window into that nonsense of the gender ideology and explicit sex education. And then in Loudoun county, we saw Governor Glenn Youngkin won his or in Virginia, we saw Governor Glenn Youngkin won that election on culture issues because he was good about speaking up. And that really just changed the name of the game everywhere. And now everyone loves culture issues, which is just a complete.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah. Not only do people love culture issues, culture issues are what won President Trump the election. Feel like the transgender women. Transgender. The men in women's sports are, I like, always getting confused. People yell at me in the chat. They're like, he's a dude. I'm like, sorry, I get confused.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

A word jumble.

[Haley Caronia]

I'm like, they're confused and it's making me confused. Okay. But, yeah, so the transgenders in women's sports and all of this, I mean, this, this is something that is wildly popular among the American electorate. They went to the polls thinking, I'm voting for common sense. Now, it was not just, I'm voting with my wallet. It is, I'm voting for the president who's going to rip away all of this woke garbage and usher in this, this golden age of common sense. So speaking of President Trump being in the office now, you are working at the White House as the correspondent for the Daily Wire. So what is that all like? What is the briefings like?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

So it's nothing like what I imagined, what I would guess a lot of people would imagine. First of all, if you watch the briefings on tv, you'll see Levitt. She's up there. She's calling on the reporters. And then the camera will go to maybe me when I ask my question. I don't know if you can tell just how small that room is.

[Haley Caronia]

That's what everyone says, that it's so teeny tiny. Yeah, tiny.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

It's a little ratchet. It's not super updated. And, Hayley, it gets smelly in there. It's kind of gross, actually, because there's so many people in there. And, like, let's say one person brings their lunch and they microwave it back in the kitchen. That's a really small space. Or, you know, let's say there's one smelly man in there, like, you. You all know. So that's a. That's something I wasn't thinking about.

[Haley Caronia]

Oh, my gosh. I don't think about that either. So there's like, a little kitchenette in the back.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah. So it's like you go in the briefing room, and then there's all the chairs, and then you could go into the back where the White House press team is, or you could keep going down the hall, and there's a space for the press to work. Although it's very special seats for the special press. I don't have one. And then there's a kitchen and a bathroom, and then it kind of connects to the rest of the White House. But it's a really small space. Like, it's kind of hard to explain how small it is. There's also kind of like a basement area with more desks for press, and if you're lucky, no one's sitting at them, and so you can go down there and write. But I did that today. But normally I'm stuck sitting in one of those briefing room seats, and I'm kind of typing and hoping no one is screen peeping, because. So you never know.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah. So you were saying, like, you don't have one of the special seats, so where do you normally sit?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

So if I'm at the briefing, I stand in the aisle. And that's a whole other kettle of fish that I'm sure I've complained to you about before, Haley. In the aisles, that's where the new media stand. And new media, honestly, just means any of the new outlets that aren't like, legacy outlets that are in the briefing room that don't have a seat. And so we stand in the aisles, and, you know, it kind of is first come, first serve. So if you get there, you hold your spot. And at the beginning, there was some kerfuffle, because sometimes you would get there, you'd hold your spot, and then someone would show up and try and stand in front of you. And, you know, I'm the oldest girl in a big family. I'm not gonna let that happen.

[Haley Caronia]

So I was like, you're like, I'm getting my spot.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah. You know, so you try and really nicely be like, hey, excuse me. Sorry. I've been here for, like, two hours. Do you mind if you stand behind me? And most people would say, sure. There were a couple people that would look me in the eye and be like, no. And then I. You know, you kind of have to have a conversation about that. And it's very, you know, eat or be eaten, because everyone wants to get their question, and you need a good spot. And if you want Caroline to see you, then you have to be towards the front of room. But, right. You know, it's settling down now more. You can. You know, you don't have to be as aggressive about your spot. But then once the briefing starts, obviously you. You can see on television, Caroline will, like, give a little bit of an opening statement, and then she'll call on people. And, you know, it's. It's kind of. It's very frenzied. Everyone's raising their hands. And then afterwards.

[Haley Caronia]

Because I thought that, like, the ap and I mean, this is all changing now because the Trump administration is doing how the Trump administration does. They're breaking all the rules. But I thought it was. The Associated Press gets the first question, and then, like, there are legacy media in the front. Like, they'll always give a question to certain outlets. Is that how it works?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Well, I know the AP thing isn't happening. In fact, I sat in the AP chair the other day because the reporter just didn't.

[Haley Caronia]

Because it's empty.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

It was so bougie. It was like, oh, look at me. Elite Mary Margaret in a chair. Who would have thought? But no, I mean, Caroline will typically call on reporters from all over the room. She definitely does call on a lot of the people in the front row, but she makes a point of calling on people in the back row, people in the aisles, people in the middle. And my friend Reagan Reese, who works for the Daily Caller, she was in there during the whole Biden administration. She never got called on by Karine Jean Pierre. So she sits in the back row. That's where the Daily Caller seat is. And she's been really happy because she gets called on very frequently. She says, shaken it up from last administration.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah, certainly they're focusing on new media in ways that the previous administration did not. What is it like to have administration that actually gives you the time of Day and actually puts in an effort to platform new media, and not only just new media, but also content creators.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Right. It's been super interesting because I was curious how it would unfold and how much access we would actually get. I think an unfortunate reality is that even though the Trump administration doesn't like how the legacy media frames things, a lot of the time, you are still going to see the legacy media getting a lot of good stories. You might see, like, a Politico story saying, seven people familiar with the situation. Well, that's seven people in the Trump administration who are familiar with the situation. So they're still getting scoops and they're still talking to people. But that being said, I think there's not anything necessarily wrong with that unless the outlet is treating the administration really badly and lying about them or manipulating them. I think what we're hearing from the administration is that they want to be open to everyone and get the truth about the administration out to the American people. So you're seeing that across the board. They have podcast rows where they'll let you come in if you have a podcast and you can interview a whole bunch of cabinet members. You know, I've had the opportunity to interview a whole bunch of people. They've let me. The Defense Department invited me to go to Panama with the Secretary of Defense. You know, I'm over at the DOJ yesterday doing press conferences with Pam Bondi. Just lots of different things that we have access to and we never would have in the last administration. Like, I'm sure. You know, Haley, the amount of times I reached out to the Biden administration with just basic press inquiries, hey, can you confirm this? Can you tell me this? Can you share that? Nothing. They would only make fun of me. So the difference is just so startling. Wow.

[Haley Caronia]

So they wouldn't even answer your questions. I thought that was her job.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Oh, no. It would be Andrew Bates, who is mean to a lot of reporters. But at the time, I was at the Daily Signal, which is the news outlet of the Heritage Foundation. And so he decided that because I had any affiliation with Heritage, I didn't count. And so he would reply to my press inquiries, and he would say, excuse me, you've reached the press office of the White House. If the Heritage foundation has any inquiries, you can reach out to this link. And he would send me a link, and I would reply and say, are you mocking me? Are you going to give me an answer to my press inquiry? And he would say the same thing again. And, yeah, I found it really disrespectful I know he treated my friend Pat Hoff when he was at Fox News really badly, too. Just a horrible person in general. And that was kind of how they treated most conservative press, which is just so you know, it's really unacceptable and rude. And also, if you're trying to disseminate the truth about the administration to the public, you still need to reach people who don't agree with you. And you probably should want to reach those populations as well if you want to change hearts and minds. But I don't know that they really.

[Haley Caronia]

Wow, that is shocking. So when you go into the briefing room, you don't get a question every day, Right. So how many questions do you prepare just in case?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

So typically, and I think this is worth mentioning, I should say this before, there's always a narrative that these legacy reporters have heading into the briefing. So what I try and do is I try and say, okay, here's what's going on the news today. Here's what I'm pretty sure all of these legacy reporters are going to be fixated on and ask question after question after question about the same thing. And then Caroline will say, well, I've already answered that. I've already answered that. And so it would be pointless for me to fixate on that as well. And typically, it's also kind of a disingenuous line of questioning, such as Kilmar, Abrego, Garcia, you know, there'll be this fixation on the Marilyn man narrative, for example. So when I see that going on, I think, okay, what else is going on that's important that our audience cares about at Daily Wire? That, I think is a good thing to talk about. And then, you know, I'll check with my boss and be like, what do you think about these questions? And I'll go in and ask them. Like, right now, something I'm really interested in asking is, you know, this study came out this week that shows that abortion drugs are 22 times more dangerous than the FDA was telling us. Well, I think that's a really interesting thing to ask the Trump administration about, especially because we're not totally sure where they stand on that sort of thing. So that's, I think, a really good question. Also, you know, another person I wanted to ask about is Ed Martin, who I was listening to Vince earlier this week, and Vince just fired me up about Ed Martin. So I was like, I gotta ask about that. But so there's so many different things that we can ask about. And typically, I'll try and draw from something that's like a daily wire interest or just really topical and in the news that I don't think other people will ask about, because at the end of the day, you want to make news and you also want to get answers. But it's important to make news as a news outlet.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah, of course. And it's kind of shocking that you said that other outlets would ask the same question over and over again. It's like, aren't you paying attention? I'd be embarrassed if someone had asked a question. And then I raised my hand and I got time with the White House press secretary, and I wasted her time by answering or asking the same question twice. That's crazy. Anytime I. Yeah, like when I worked in media my whole career, whenever I was coming up, I was taught, you bring a notebook, you write down everything, and never ask the same question twice, because why would you waste someone's time? They've already given you this information. You're supposed to be a sponge. You're supposed to take it all in and never bother this person again. You're lucky to be there. So it's crazy that these people at these liberal outlets don't have the same mentality. But my qu. My next question for you is, you're in this room with people who you've said hate. You are people friends with, you know, let's say someone who has a different viewpoint as that. As them. You know, do you see a reporter from CNN and you're like, okay, they're actually not that bad. They're actually kind of cool.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah. I think there's less animosity than I expected. And when I say they hate me, I'm thinking of, you know, specific people who are very outspoken about their views and outspoken about disliking places like Dilly Wire. But I will say there's some really good people in there. There's people who work for outlets that I don't like that have been really kind to me, and I like them. And, you know, actually there I'm thinking of. There's a reporter at CNN who helped me on a trip recently. He was super nice to me and gave me some tips and helped me out on that trip. And so that's really nice. You know, you walk through the hall, you see that person, you say, hello. There was. I had a weird little skirmish with, I think, an NBC reporter recently who said something. She kind of muttered something under her breath during a briefing, so I tweeted about it. And then she turned around afterwards and kind of tried to like, put me in my place. So, you know, there's some weirdness like that. But one of the nice things that I don't know if everyone realizes is that some of these other reporters from conservative outlets, it's people that I've known for a while, they're just, you know, they progress in their careers and now they're in the briefing room. Like my friend Monica Luisi, for example, she's marrying Dan Baldwin and he's with One America News. She's with Frontlines tpusa. They're getting married this weekend, actually. And so that's really nice. You know, I'll see them in there. Brian Glenn has been really good to me. You guys probably know who he is. He's the one that asked Zelensky why he wasn't better dressed in the Oval Office. He's just really kind guy. And what I love about him is I see him interacting with people on both sides of the aisle and everybody likes him. You know, maybe they don't like his views, but they all love him as a person. And I think that's, that's a really good example of how we should all be handling it.

[Haley Caronia]

Seriously. And so Politico did a piece recently on the eight MAGA outlets disrupting the briefing room. And you were part of this, this expose, if you will. So do you think that people in the media, in the legacy media, do they look down on you as new media?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Well, Politico certainly does, and the New York Times certainly does. And the reason they write stories like that is because they don't think we're worthy to be in there. Because if you are in there and you are a member of the White House Correspondents association, you, as the elitist media, should be only criticizing and only asking questions of the Trump administration that basically make them look bad.

[Haley Caronia]

Right.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

And so, you know, any questions that are just truth seeking or are genuinely interested in the good things that the Trump administration has done, like why would you ask that to them? That's considered, you know, fluffing or like, you know, just promoting the Trump administration, where I fundamentally disagree with that. I think if they do, if the Trump administration has a win and there's an important question to be asked about it, there is nothing wrong with asking about that, especially because our audiences and our viewers care and they want to know more about it.

[Haley Caronia]

Right.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

But in their eyes, that's not acceptable. And so, you know, as a daily wire reporter or White House correspondent, I'm not really considered worthy to be in there. And so they'll write about us and imply that our questions are embarrassing or that we shouldn't be in there and that, you know, we're taking valuable time from the whole cohort of reporters. We're all asking the same question, please.

[Haley Caronia]

Like they're, like they're valuable.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah. So I appreciate the limelight, I appreciate, you know, the attention on what we're doing because we, we are excited to be in there. We're proud to be in there and our audience is really excited that we're in there too. But at the same time, I know what's going on, I know why they're doing it. So, you know, it's kind of a two edged sword.

[Haley Caronia]

Well, you're in good company because the mainstream media, they're freaking out about the manosphere and now the womanosphere. I mean, they hate independent podcasters. Whether it's Joe Rogan or Theo Vaughn or content creators like Aiden Ross or whether it's females like Brett Cooper, Candace Owens, like, they are just threatened in ways, I think it's threatened. But they, they work very hard to demonize these podcasters. It's, it's gotta be for the reasons that you just listed. But Vanity Fair just did a piece on protein and maga's obsession with it, and here's the headline. Why are Americans so obsessed with protein? Blame maga. Of course. I mean, there's, of course we have to blame MAGA for everything, but they're, they ended this piece by saying of course. And they spend this entire piece, you know, blaming Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and, you know, all these other MAHA influencers for basically getting people interested in protein. And they ended the article with this quote. So I just want to read this for you. Whether our current protein path leads to an accidental brush with transcendence or face down on the pavement as gunshots ricochet nearby remains to be seen.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

On earth.

[Haley Caronia]

So this is over protein intake. They're like, if you listen to these podcasts and you eat protein, you're, you know, you're part of the problem. You're this violent individual, literally.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

And you know what? I think they didn't do enough of their research. Because if you really want to boil it down, Carnivore Aurelius is one of the most popular protein accounts, right? I think he's very apolitical. There's been protein accounts and people promoting health and wellness for a long time now. And it just sort of turned out in recent years that people who care about their health and wellness are more conservative because conservative lifestyles seem more open to embracing health and wellness than otherwise. And I mean, that article made me laugh. There's been a bunch of those recently that are just so wildly out of touch that I have to think, you know, your average young person, too, who sees that is like, excuse me.

[Haley Caronia]

I know.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Are you insane?

[Haley Caronia]

It's so stupid. Anyway, speaking of out of touch, I want to talk about all of these Give Send go go fund me. Just all the chaos that is happening with all of these crowdfunding funds that are set up for essentially some of the worst people in society. So as a rule on Nightly Scroll, I do not say the names of criminals. So I don't want to say the name of the teenager who killed Austin metcalfe. But a GoFundMe or a GiveSend Go rather, was set up for him. He raised over $500,000. And just recently, we saw in Dave Portnoy's barstool bar in Philadelphia, a patron ordered bottle service and got the sign that said F the Jews on it. His name I will not repeat. But they set up a givesend go for him as well. And in the givesend Go, it says A. He's a Temple University student. He's facing a devastating reality. His future reputation and freedom are under attack without a shred of due process. I'm asking you to help defend the principles our justice system was built on. It goes on to explain what the legal fees or what the givesend go would go towards and its legal fees to challenge Temple University suspension of him, public relations support to combat ongoing defamation, and mental health resources as he navigates this trauma. This is f around, find out. This is play stupid games, win stupid prizes. These people are allergic to accountability, it seems.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think there's this fixation in our culture right now to. Or this tendency in our culture right now to fixate on a person like this. Kind of like the way people fixated on Luigi Mangioni.

[Haley Caronia]

Right.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Would you mind my saying his name? Right. And someone who is obviously very bad did a very bad thing and to make a hero out of them. And I think you could credit a lot of that to social media, Netflix and movies. And the way that, you know, our society operates now, we like kind of an underdog with a crazy story, Right? But at the same time, there's something very wrong about it. You know, it's not natural to idolize someone who is very obviously the. The aggressor in a situation or, you know, just very obviously wrong. And so it bothers me A lot when I, when I see that type of thing. Because you know that there's something wrong with people that they would allow such type of content to go viral or they would support that kind of content. Right. But on the flip side, I think there's a lot of recognition of the evil. So you do have like a huge portion of society that can say, wow, this is really messed up. I can't understand why this type of content would be so popular or why this type of person would be revered like this. And I think it's a little bit a sign in the times when you see how insane some of these stories are. But then you also have good people who can recognize it. So I don't totally know what to make of it. I'm curious what you think of it.

[Haley Caronia]

Well, I used to be pro givesend. Go pro crowdfunding because it used to be, hey, this person in our community needs a wheelchair or hey, my, you know, my so, my so and so, my aunt, my whatever has cancer. We need help paying for the, the treatments or what have you. It's gotten to the point now where anyone and everyone who just doesn't want to take accountability for their own actions is getting a, a GoFundMe set up. They're getting a ton of attention. A lot of this is media driven. I think the media loves to cover these stories. They get a lot of attention, especially when it's like this racial divide. So we saw the, the GoFundMe that was set up or the GiveSendGo. I keep getting them confused. But the givesend go, that was set up for the teenager who killed Austin Metcalfe. You know, he raises over $500,000. Then, you know, so we see a lot of people in the black community supporting him because of this racial dynamic. Then on the other side of the spectrum, we have this woman who is caught on camera calling a five year old kid the N word over and over again on video. So now this video goes viral. Now she has a fundraiser that's set up. She raises $700,000. I personally think that if you are an adult and you are calling a little kid any kind of name, you are in the wrong. I don't care if she called him a little twerp, you're wrong. You're yelling at a kid and you know the issue from this video and I, I don't want to play the video because it's just vulgar for a lot of different reasons. But the kid, apparently, according to this woman who's in the video, the kid was stealing her kids toys and just being kind of like a pain in the butt on the playground. Still, you were in the wrong if you were yelling at a kid and saying anything. Like there's a way to, to reprimand a child for doing the wrong thing, but you don't have to call them the N word.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah. Oh no. I totally agree. And I think that's rewarding bad behavior too. And I like that in a free society we have the ability to raise money if we need it. I've probably donated to a couple of these different platforms when it's someone who's genuinely really sick or someone who's really in a time of need. But I don't think I've donated to any of these really viral ones because some of them are just, they're just outlandish. So I would definitely agree with you on that one. And I think in general people need to be slower to jump on board with some of these causes and to actually do some research and take a moment beyond your initial emotional reaction to process what's going on and maybe decide before you send your money off to some stranger that did something explosive on the Internet.

[Haley Caronia]

100%. Speaking of emotional reaction, I want to talk to you about dating but I, I, I want you to stick around because I, I have a segment called scrolling time. I scroll on TikTok my screen time. Let's see what my screen time is today. Let's just take a gander. It's always disgusting.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

I've seen some of your videos, I've seen your streams.

[Haley Caronia]

15 hours and one minute today. So far, just 15 hours.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

I'm so impressed.

[Haley Caronia]

The night is young everyone. So I spend a lot of time on my phone. I try to get content that people haven't seen yet. So I have a lot of content here. It's all dating related. So we're going to get into the love portion on scrolling time.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Amazing.

[Haley Caronia]

You can dance. It's okay. I dance to the music every night. I'm like woo. Okay, so this first video that I have for you, it's a girl, she's sitting in a parking lot after she didn't even make it to the date because the guy wore a maga hat. Watch this.

[C]

I was about to go on a date and I saw the guy walk past my car and I put my car in drive and drove away. I literally just pulled over to tell this story matched with this guy on an app. Very handsome, young, seemingly successful, had two cute dogs, seemed super career oriented. Like we really seemed Very aligned. And on his bio, he said he was politically moderate, which can mean a lot of different things to different people, but it definitely does not mean this. I'm sitting in my car. I see him walk past my car. My man is wearing a maga hat on a first date. And I looked closely. Maga, Make America Great Again, bright red. And just like, I don't understand the bait and switch. Why would you say you're politically moderate on an app and then show up in a maga hat? I guess just to, like, get a reaction out of someone. But, like, if that's how you're running your dating life, probably not having a lot of success. And again, like, you can believe whatever you believe. I can disagree with you. That is okay. But I don't want to date someone who's walking around in broad daylight in a maga hat. It's like, low key, embarrassing. So anyways, that was a waste of time. I'm gonna get myself a little coffee, and we'll try again another day.

[Haley Caronia]

Okay, so there's a few things to unpack here. Would you be turned off if a guy showed up on a date wearing a maga hat? Because I think I would.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Okay, so I'm turning 30, so yes. I probably would be confused why he was wearing a maga hat at that age. Just because as adults, that's not typically, like, it's very political. And I don't know, in my. Our phase of life, I just don't think that that would be something that a guy would show up wearing. But it kind of sounds like he wore it on purpose because he was weeding out the people who would be upset by it. And I wouldn't be upset. I wouldn't leave, but I would kind of be like, why are you wearing that? It's a little bit of a str headgear for our first date. If you're trying to make a good chill impression. But that's just me.

[Haley Caronia]

You wear it knowing that it's going to elicit some kind of response whether you wear a shirt. And, like, I'm wearing a Bongino army shirt today. I have another one that I wore to the the grocery store this past weekend, and multiple people stopped me. Love your shirt. Love your shirt. Love your shirt. So, you know, obviously I'm in Florida, so that makes sense. I have maga hats. I have multiple maga hats. I've worn them on many occasions. There's a time and place. There's a time and place. I would not wear it on a date. If a guy showed up wearing it on a date, honestly, like, you should be taking me somewhere where you don't even wear a hat. Like, right, right. Let's go to, like, a nice bar, a nice restaurant. Take your hat off.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Good point. But at the same time, I think what I found interesting about that video because I have a close friend that's on dating apps. I'm not on them right now because I hate them, but I have a close friend that's on them, and she was showing me a lot of these guys profiles. And it's fascinating to me how a lot of guys who are very conservative will put moderate because I think they feel like it's too much for a lot of women. And so they have to say they're moderate in order to reach a certain population, but then that population is not going to like them if they're saying that. Right.

[Haley Caronia]

I mean, how many people nowadays are actually moderate? Like, let's be serious about it. And, you know, it's become this prerequisite, like, you have to know where someone aligns politically before you go on a date with them, which, for better or worse, I feel like bipolitical relationships are kind of a thing of the past. I think our parents age people would politics just, like, wasn't really that big of a deal. And older than that, I feel like if you disagreed politically, wasn't that big of a deal. I think Trump came onto the scene, politics got a lot more divisive, a lot more fiery. Now, people. I mean, there were a lot of divorces reported because of the Trump administration and politics nowadays since this Trump administration. So it is interesting. At this point in my life, I've dated people who disagree with me politically. At this point in my life, I'm trying to find, like, a husband. I am not dating someone who would even put moderate in their dating app, because I think that the guys who put moderate on there are doing that because they want to get girls. Like, they're just trying to appeal to liberal girls. And it's like, why do you want that? Like, maybe they just want something less serious. I'm looking for something more serious. Your morals have to align for you to get married, in my opinion.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Right. And I think, you know, at risk of sounding mean here, I'm not really interested in a guy who's not confident or brave enough to openly say that he's conservative. And if he's interested in girls who are not actually conservative, I'm not really sure that I'm interested in him 100%.

[Haley Caronia]

100%.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

And also kind of my perspective on this too, is I cover so many culture war issues. Where is the moderate part in transing kids or, you know, abortions? I'm just a little confused on where you would land on those types of things. If you're portraying yourself as a political moderate and if you have a good response to that, sure, I'm interested. But it just kind of seems like a fake, little lazy thing you do to attract girls on both sides of the aisle. And that's not really the kind of guy that I would hope me or my friends would end up with.

[Haley Caronia]

But, yeah, I don't. I don't want someone to be lukewarm on any of these culture issues, especially if you're going to be raising children and sending them to school or maybe choosing to homeschool. You really do have to be on the same page on a lot of different things. I'm on dating apps right now. It's bad. It's really bad. It makes me sad.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

They're terrible.

[Haley Caronia]

Like, I'll come in here after a date and I'll show the producers in here. Like, I'll show guy's in here tonight. But it's usually Mikey and Andy's in here and I'll come in. I'm like, do you see this guy?

[C]

Like, what?

[Haley Caronia]

Like, this is crazy. Like, they look like crack addicts. Like, they're not even real. Yeah. And there's. There are couples on the dating apps that have their pictures together. And it's like we're looking for a third. I'm like, this is disgusting. Like, what is happening? So I think that dating apps are bad for culture. I am on them because you never know. People meet in all different kinds of ways. And I feel like being on dating apps doesn't, you know, prevent me from meeting someone in real life. So I am like, okay, at least I'm open to it. Maybe I'll meet someone on there. But I'm not closed off to meeting people in real life. It's just opening up my opportunities. But I feel like the more people you swipe through and the more people you see, the pickier you get. Oh, yeah, for sure. I think with social media, like, not just dating apps, but seeing people on social media, it's like this highlight reel of their life. Dating apps and profiles are like that as well. It's like, this is the best of the best. Then you show up, they don't look so good or whatever. So I think that dating apps are bad for culture.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

I totally agree with You, Haley. I actually. I feel like we've talked about this before in our, like, dating rants. I personally think that it's not just dating apps that are really hurting how people are dating. It's also social media, Instagram, TikTok, specifically for men. I think it makes men feel like they have this endless amount of options.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

And so if they do, you know, take a chance and settle down, like, oh, my gosh, they're missing out on so many things because they have this whole wide world of beautiful women at their fingertips that they can DM and maybe she won't ever respond or see it, but they can reach out.

[Haley Caronia]

And so it's always there.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yeah. And I think we just have too many options, men and women alike. But I think, you know, men are more visual than women are, and Instagram and TikTok offers just so much that you can see of women. Yeah. And I. I think it's really harming our ability to connect with each other and for people to just even desire lasting relationships, which is so sad. Yeah.

[Haley Caronia]

I also think because we have dating apps and social media, and certainly since COVID in younger generations, people don't feel as comfortable to reach out in real life. I go out to bars with my friends. We don't get hit on. Drinks are not bought for us for the most part. Like, maybe sometimes, like, once in a blue moon. But I mean, all throughout my twenties in New York City, I mean, we wouldn't get approached. I go out now. Like, we don't get approached. It's really rare to meet someone in real life. And people say all the time, you're not going to meet someone at a bar. You need to meet someone at church. You need to put the chairs away after church. I'm Catholic, brother. There's no chairs to put away. Okay, maybe could I go after and get coffee and donuts and make an effort that way? Sure. Maybe I should be doing that. People say, well, go to the gym. I'm in the gym. Like, I go to the grocery store. Like, people meet all different kinds of ways. I'm not. I don't know. Like, am I doing something wrong? I'm not sure. But people are getting married much later now. And even if they do get married, some couples are waiting to have kids. And I want to get your take on why you think that is.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

So many, so many reasons. And that's a loaded question. I should start by saying I was a lot more judgmental about this before my friends started getting married. And then I started finding out how many women have serious fertility issues? And it's a whole plethora of reasons for that. But, you know, so many women have miscarriages and don't talk about it and are silent about it. It's truly such a horrible, heartbreaking thing, especially when you combine it with, like, the manipulative rhetoric of the left when they're trying to say that aborting your baby or using abortion drugs is the same thing. It is not the same thing. But so many women that we know are struggling with fertility issues, and maybe, you know, God forbid one of us struggles with that in the future when we ultimately get married. When you wait so long to have children and then you. You only then find out that you have fertility issues, you really come up against the clock, and it's really tragic and horrible. And, you know, a lot of women are encouraged by, I would say, like the feminist movement and feminist left to believe that they can have kids at any time and that you can wait and you can use IVF and later on you can have children. What's not really explained to us, and, you know, I think there's a lot of talk about this now, is that, A, you might hit these fertility issues. B, IVF is very expensive. Yes, there's some moral implications there as well that I have as a Catholic, but. And then also, you know, just sometimes you run out of time. You don't meet someone before you hit a certain age. And so there's a whole realm of things that I don't think were explained to us properly. Also, on top of that, if you want to get real specific here, half of the women that we know grew up on birth control, and we never told about the effects that the birth control would have on their fertility or on their future ability to have children. And that one really gets me going because I think so many women have been lied to about the impacts that sexuality, your own sexuality, can have on your future life and your fertility. And all of it is very manipulative because I think, you know, I would argue that marriage and procreation and babies and even sexuality itself, all of these things are so beautiful. But a lot of our conversations around them have been twisted so much to make it seem like everything should be about I, I, I and me, me, me, and do what makes you happy, all of these things instead of focusing on, you know, the good of a family, the good of a marriage, the good of children, the good of society, and all these things that make us happier and function better. And, you know, that from a religious perspective, there's a whole lot going on there that I won't get into right now. But just from a purely secular perspective, we need to be encouraging women to be loving and faithful and men to be loving and faithful as well, rather than promiscuous. And, you know, if we're talking about marriage and family and birth rates, there's nothing wrong with getting married young, and there's nothing wrong with encouraging that and starting a family young. And I think we need to support families who are getting started younger because that's really brave and beautiful of them.

[Haley Caronia]

To do it is. And I think the reason why a lot of people, and I mean, I just haven't met someone, but a lot of my friends, they're either not getting engaged because they don't have their money. Right. To get a ring or to get, have a wedding. I mean, wedding culture has gotten so out of control. It's so expensive. The bubble has to pop. At some point, people are just going to stop getting married or they're going to go to the courthouse or do something at home or, or do something on their own. It's, it's not going to be this extravagant event. Like, it's, it's just gotten insane. And I think a lot of that has to do with social media, too. But I think in terms of having children as well, or buying a house, I mean, people want to get the ring, have a wedding, buy a house before they start having kids. Millennials and Gen Z can't afford that.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Right.

[Haley Caronia]

I think a lot of it has to do with the economy.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

I think you're right, too. That's definitely at play. And I know, you know, I have a bunch of friends who really tried to do it right. You know, they, they, they did get married young. And the. I feel, I feel really so much respect and compassion at the same time for the fathers in these families because they decide they are gonna get their family a house, but that involves moving really far away from everyone they know out somewhere where they can afford a house. And then they're kind of cut off from their family and they're cut off from their community, and they have to kind of rebuild far away. And maybe that's a good thing for them, but that's really hard. Our culture should be enabling young people and families to get started in communities that will support them with things like childcare, mothers helping their daughters with childcare. That's something that's happened since the beginning of time. But a lot of women are cut off from that option now, given the way that our culture and communities work, which, you know, that's something I hear from my girlfriends all the time now, is how they need more support if they want to support their family or if they're, you know, they, they're needing help and connection with their community and they just can't really find it because of the way that they're having to live.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah, not only that, a lot of my friends make more money than their male counterparts. They, they make more money than their husband, than their fiance, than their boyfriend. And it, it, you have this issue where it's like, okay, well, what if I want to be a stay at home mom one day? You can't, um, so you kind of lose out on this, you know, dream of motherhood or of being a stay at home mom because you can't rely on the one income household because it's just, it's unsustainable. And you, you brought up a point earlier about just like not meeting the right person. And I want to get into this debate between Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh. So here's what Megyn Kelly had to say in defense of women like us. Watch.

[D]

Here's what's happening on the right young women. I, and I talk to young conservative women all the time about their lives and their goals and, you know, the things that they want. And what's happening is they can't find men who are maybe more conservative. Usually they're looking for somebody who is religious. You know, like, they're, A lot of conservative women tend to be God, God loving conservatives and they can't find a lot of young men who want to marry a working woman. Now this is an actual problem that's, that's coming up on the right. And to me, it's so sad because it's like, how did we get to the point where we, we're now telling young conservative amazing women that they're not attractive if they also work, if they choose to, let's say, do what I'm doing and what you're doing and like get their voice out there. But I'll stick with me just because I think conservatives listening to this will like the thought of another Megyn Kelly voice up and coming. Well, why wouldn't we want that? Why would we take somebody who's talented in this field and really wants to make a difference and have the messaging to her be, you're really not that valuable unless you give it up and go into the home and only have a family and only raise a family. And the, and not only are you sending her that message. But young men are actually believing that they're actually believing, especially on the right because like the trad mom has gotten so popular and it's like, no, if we do that, we're not going to have any strong conservative or right leaning women to provide a role model for younger conservative women who, and there's nothing to apologize for here, don't necessarily want to spend all their 20s and their 30s getting married and having kids or can't. They just weren't able to meet somebody and definitely don't need to be shamed over it.

[Haley Caronia]

What's your reaction?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Well, I actually have a, I think a nuanced take on this because I'm one of the women that Megan has talked to. Megan and I had a long conversation a couple months ago about attitudes towards women in this phase of life because as I told her, I've definitely dated guys who found it really stressful that, you know, I wrote a book or that, you know, I, I have the platform that I have or things like that. And I'm sure you've encountered this too, Haley, where it's a little intimidating to guys that you have the things that you have. And you know, I said to Megan, I said, look, I want, I'm a serious Catholic, I want to have a big family. I want to marry a guy that I really respect that is a good man that loves me and respects me as well. But it's kind of hard to find that when you have the platform that you do. And a lot of women who are in this field, they do have a platform and so it's a little intimidating. And so, you know, I do agree with Megan and a lot of the points she made. I will say I think that some of the representations of trad women or of what men want are misinterpreted by some parts because, you know, Matt Walsh, for example, who's a colleague of mine who I respect a lot, I've heard him say many times that some women don't want to stay home and that's fine and you know, you need to support them.

[Haley Caronia]

Well, I'll stop you there because I have the video of Matt Walsh and what his take is. So let's play that quick, if we could play.

[E]

Men are generally not attracted to ambitious, career driven women. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that men will not marry those kinds of women. And I'm not saying that wives should never have jobs. In many households, both parents work out of financial necessity. I think a woman's first priority should be the children and the home. But that doesn't mean she can't do other things and pursue other vocations alongside that. And as I said, in many cases, a family might feel that they need two full time incomes in order to survive. I understand all of that. Most men ideally would like to earn an income that would allow them to be the sole breadwinner in the home. Most men like the idea of being the provider. That ideal will not always become a reality, but it is the ideal. And as for attraction, men are not generally attracted to a woman's professional ambitions. That's just not the quality that attracts a man to a woman. Now, that isn't to say that men are never attracted to women with careers. What I'm saying is that the fact that a woman has a career will rarely be the thing or even one of the things that men find attractive about her. When a man is talking to his friends about a woman he's dating, he's almost certainly not going to say any version of this. Dude, she's great. She takes her career really seriously. She's super ambitious. She has so much earning potential. That's the kind of thing that a woman might say to her friends. A man is not going to say that about a woman.

[Haley Caronia]

It's true. I actually. So I agree with Megyn Kelly. I agree with Matt Walsh. I do believe that women are not biologically wired to go sit in a cubicle from nine to five. I think that a lot of women would be happier, married, staying at home, raising children, but obviously that was not my experience. And I'm very glad that I do have this career because if I didn't go to college and I didn't work hard and I didn't climb the ladder, I'd be living in a cardboard box.

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

I know, I totally agree with you. And I like that you're showing both of these videos here too, because I think both of these conversations are so important. And like you, I kind of agree with both of them on some factors. And first, to start with, most women are not going to have a career like Megyn Kelly does because let's just face it, not everyone is as smart and as aggressive and talented as Megyn Kelly. So I just like to remember that and keep her on the pedestal where she is because she's really freaking cool, right? But at the same time, there is something really beautiful about a mom who wants to stay home with her family. And you know, I would love to do that someday. But one of the things I love about my job And I think you could probably say the same is that there's flexibility within media. There's ways that you can be with your family and also do your job and a little bit have a little bit of both. But the lie that we're told all the time is that women can have it all. And I think that a reasonable person looks at that statement and understands that, no, you can't have it all when it comes to career. And family somewhere is giving a little bit. And so if you're full time in your career, you're not home. Well, someone else is watching your kids and you're not having the time with them that maybe they're going to want or tell you someday that they wish that you had with them. And so I think we just need to be more honest about these conversations. And Matt's right. Like, men are not looking for a career driven woman when they're thinking, who's the love of my life? But maybe the guy for one of us is going to be excited about our jobs and not scared of them and can value us as a person on both a professional and a personal level. So I think there's a little bit to be taken from both of them and there's hope.

[Haley Caronia]

We can only hope. We can only hope. But I've got one last video for you and I just want you to react. This girl got down on one knee and proposed to her man. Watch. Yep. So here's a video. This is actually. She's a wedding photographer. She gets down on one knee, opens the. Opens the ring box. The guy's got a man bun. He accepts happily ever after. Would you ever in your life, Mary Margaret, do something like that?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

You would catch me dead before you proposing. Also, I like that you pointed out the man bun. That was a really pivotal part of this video. And I'm glad that you made note of that.

[Haley Caronia]

Yeah. This is not something that I'll be doing. If no one proposes to me, I will die alone. And I'll be fine with that. But I am not getting on one knee for anyone. I am not proposing. I like. That is not. That is not happening. But Mary Margaret, thank you so much for being here. I want you to plug your book. Where can people follow you?

[Mary Margaret Olihan]

Yes. So you can buy my book. D True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult. It is not about me, as people seem to think recently. It is about some really brave people who interviewed with me and I'm very proud of it. You can follow my work at marymargolahan on Twitter. Or you can read my [e-mail] Amazing.

[Haley Caronia]

Thank you so much for being here. And thank you to all my homies in the chat. Thank you for spending this Friday evening with us. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. In the meantime, you can follow me on social media at Haley Carania. Of course, you've got to subscribe to the Bongino Report channel right here on Rumble. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, so you never miss a show. And I'll see you on Monday.